The Mole 7/28 recap: Walking the Plank

Welcome, ye few and hardy Mole fans! You may notice I am not, in fact, Iguanachocolate. She has been called away to other duties, and so I will be recapping you through the rest of the season. I believe in honesty (which I suppose means I could never be the Mole. Or am I just utterly lying? Ha.) and so I must say, I have not been really following this show. I’m sure I’ll catch up quickly. I mean, it’s reality TV, not some abstract foreign arty film. From what I understand, someone’s a fakey liar and if the others can make it through the show AND pick the Mole, they win lots of money.

We’re down to four contestants, apparently, and the final exemption. Last week there was some dispute between Paul and Nicole, and Clay got sent home. Mark whines that Clay was his friend and someone he trusted. Nicole says she’s incapable of throwing a test. Paul says he’s only got to knock out two more people to take home the money.

Why Not Make It Upside Down Too?

They’re in Buenos Aires. The host, Jon, who looks like he should be reading entertainment news in a fake-serious voice on a cable show, explains the next challenge, called “Where’s the View”. They’re near what looks like a warehouse, and Jon asks for two players who consider themselves young at heart.

Paul and Craig volunteer. Paul says Craig is his top suspect, so he wants to compete with him. Paul takes Mark and Nicole goes with Craig. Today they’ll have to complete an obstacle course for kids. Craig says he knew it would be something his seven-year-old nephew would make fun of him for. Aw, now, he shouldn’t be too hard on the nephew. I’ll make fun of him too.

Anyway, a kids’ obstacle course sounds easy, right? No. One partner will wear goggles, which only show what the other person shoots on a video camera – backwards. And they can’t talk. “It’s frustrating to me to not be able to speak ever,” Mark says.

Jon says it’s basically a manual dexterity test. Paul, already looking for excuses, says he can always blame the other person, or the goggles, if he does badly. They start with a game in which Paul and Craig will put shaped blocks into a square, for $1,000 a piece, in one minute. Paul says it’s a lot harder than it seemed. He gets one in, 15 seconds in. As the second takes longer, he yells something about getting feedback. But he gets all three.

Craig and Nicole do the same test. She tells us she’s a laproscopic surgeon, in which everything is done by camera, backward, and this would have been cake for her to be in Craig’s place. She does badly at holding the camera, though, and Craig doesn’t know if she’s trying to mess him up.

He gets all three, but loses $1,000 for asking a question that Nicole answered.

Next is a soccer-kicking test. Paul does badly, which Mark thinks is suspicious. But Craig misses his too. Which makes Nicole suspicious. Is there anything that doesn’t make these people suspicious?

Next up: tea cups, the filling thereof, with tea. Paul does well with this one, although he blames Mark for zooming. He gets three but is marked down one for spilling a drop.

Nicole still sucks at her camerawork. And Craig overfills the glasses, despite there being a line in the cup. He only gets credit for one, due to spills.

Now it’s time to go bigger. They’ll cross a board between two buildings, two stories up. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Paul says.

He must walk the plank, and pick up a piece of chalk in the middle, get to the other side and copy whatever’s on a chalk board. Paul’s nervous that Mark will purposely screw up and endanger him; I guess no one told him he’s tied to numerous ropes. Paul shuffles out on the board, gets the chalk, and has to get to the other side in one minute. He keeps claiming “interference,” which Mark rightly suspects as a lie. He manages to write “The mole was here” with seconds to spare.

Craig’s turn. “You people are sadistic,” he says. Apparently he has vertigo and a fear of heights. Well, I can certainly see why he went on a reality TV competition show. Craig gets out the plank, and somehow turns himself sideways, despite Nicole’s camera at least somewhat showing him where he is. He finally does get the chalk. For no use, as the minute expires before he gets to the other side. Thus losing $10,000.

“You didn’t have to Mole it up that bad,” Nicole says to us.

They head off to dinner, where they make fun of Craig’s chalk efforts. Left alone, Nicole tells Paul Craig never caught on how to operate with the camera, and Paul says it was indeed hard.

I Shot The Sheriff But I Did Not Shoot the Deputy

The next morning, Mark whines that he’s 100 percent on his own now. Craig arrives in his room, and they whine together about the lack of exemptions. They expect a final exemption, and it’s all Mark can think about. Craig says it’s the most important exemption in the game.

Eventually everyone appears in some other warehouse looking place. The host says the fun is over. “I was like, what was the fun part?” Craig says. Host says this is the final exemption, through a mission called Cell Out.

There are four, numbered cells. Each will go into one and be locked in. Inside is a puzzle called a “doublet.” There are two words on the wall; change one letter to make another word, then another letter, then another, till it becomes the second word. It sounds frankly confusing to me, but whenever they get it, they’re set free. The first person becomes a paintball sniper, who is the only one who can win the exemption. “I’ve been wanting to shoot somebody ever since I got here,” Nicole says. The others must get to the door without getting shot. They get money if they get through without being tagged. But one will hold the exemption, though, and the sniper must hit them to get it. So they can earn money, or an exemption.

Mark has actually done doublets before. Who knew? They’ve all got the same words: turn “cell” into “mole.” Mark thinks he’ll get shot, so he needs to get out first to be the sniper. And he does get released from the cell first, having solved it in 53 seconds. But he’s never played “competitive paintball.” And it couldn’t be more foreign. Meanwhile, Nicole has an error, and Craig gets out. Paul, in fact, is the only one still working, 7 minutes in. He claims the puzzle is confusing. Nicole says they have a better chance with Mark shooting. “If Paul had the gun we’d all be dead.” They wait for Paul, though, while Jon says he’s just in there doing graffiti. Finally Paul gets it.

They decide someone has to draw fire. They want to keep Mark from getting the exemption. It’s dark and the action is confusing as they run around from hiding place to hiding place. They leapfrog from cover to cover as two move while he focuses on someone else. Paul thinks he hit someone, but there’s no paint on them. The paintball didn’t break. He’s furious. He finally gets Nicole. And Paul escapes, just missing getting shot. That leaves Craig, who quickly gets shot.

Paul added $15,000 to the pot. Jon says the player who carried the exemption was determined by which cell number they chose. Turns out it’s Craig who had it, so Mark does win the final exemption, thus guaranteeing himself a spot in the finals. He’s got a 50-50 shot at the money.

Paul then says it doesn’t seem right that an exemption is given at this point in the game. “It’s like, you’re getting a free pass to half a million dollars,” he says. Oh, poor baby. Of course it’s not fair now that you’ve lost. Whatever, whiner.

Paul and His Ego are Eliminated

At dinner later, Paul says he’s finally a little nervous. As much as he doesn’t like some of the things Nicole has done, he does respect her because she uses the same tactics as he does. She agrees. Craig feels there are two forces of good – being him and Mark – and two of evil, being Paul and Nicole. Paul believes he’s known the mole since day one. Mark says Nicole is either the mole or a great manipulator.

Quiz: ten questions about the mole. Person who scores lowest will be executed:

Is the mole Male or female?
During the “How’s the View” mission, where was the mole standing from Jon’s perspective?
What was the mole wearing during the How’s the View?
Was the Mole a young at heart player during How’s the View?
In what order did the Mole’s team participate in the How’s the View mission?
In the intro of the Cell Out mission, where was the Mole standing from Jon’s perspective?
In what cell number was the Mole locked up?
What role did the Mole play during the shootoing portion of Cell Out?
Where was the Mole successfully hit by a paintball gun during Cell Out? (Ed: Isn’t that revealing, since only two got hit?)
Who is the Mole?

Paul is the one who gets the red screen. So he’s eliminated. Odd, since he suspected Craig, who I suspect too. So presumably, then, it’s someone else? Tune in next week, when we may or may not find out; I’m not sure if it’s a finale or not yet.

Re: The Mole 7/28 recap: Walking the Plank

Lucy, are you sure you're not the Mole? You've done a good job catching on for someone who doesn't watch. This show is hard to keep track of.

The way eliminations work, if there is a tie for last place, whoever took more time on the test gets eliminated. So in this case, let's say Craig is the Mole and everybody thinks Craig is the Mole. So even if Paul (along with everybody else) got every single question correct, if he took too long on the test he'd be out. And considering it took him so much longer on that doublet...